THE CHINESE ARMY

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 February 1932, Page 3

THE CHINESE ARMY

% WHERE IT FAILS-

For th© first time since the found* ing of, the Republic in 1911, a Chines'e army is making a stand against a foreign power and has done some fighting. China has lost territories which her armies tried to defend, but it is important that they fought and did not altogether run away as these same armies ran away from the Russians in 1929. The failure of the Chinese to hold Manchuria is not due to inferior fighting capacity, but to a lack of organisation, writes George Sokolsky in the “New York Times.” The Chinese is a good soldier, capable of great endurance, eating little, and carrying little that he eats, requiring little provision for living and less succour when he is wounded. He goes into a fight with a good deal of cheerfulness and fights hard while he is at it. The Chinese soldier is a professional. He is a soldier for life. When he is not ehrolled in an army, he is a bandit, which is the same as being a soldier in his country. He switches his allegiances easily because he. is a professional. His commander sells his services, often to the highest bidder. But he has ho organisation behind him. Although 85 per cent, of all revenues collected in China every year are spent by various military units, much of it goes to the Generals. The fact that Marshal Chang Tsuchliang’s father left him a fortune of about 25,000,000 dollars proves how profitable it is to be a General, especially a great General. Each General collects for his entire army. He is supposed to tell the authority paying him how many troops he has, ad he often pads the list. He usually receives a lump sum from Which he is to pay the troops, feed and clothe them, buy equipment, and the like. Whatevei’ he saves ftom this allowance is his own. He saves a good deal. A General receives his money either from the national commander-in-chief provincial governments, or direct levies in the territory where he may be. Whatever money he receives is his. He is accountable to no one. He must, however, treat his soldiers fairly well or he will not have a decent fighting force. He pays his subordinate officers in exactly the i same manner that he is paid, and they must treat tlieir soldiers decently or their authority over their men Will be weakened.

The Chief-of-Staff of a General is usually an educated soldier. The commander himself may not be able to read, as, far example, General Ma Clienshan. As younger men come to the fore, more of China’s generals are of the chief-of-staff rather than the bandit type. The Gh,ie/-of;-Staff .not only assists the General to lay out a campaign, but he is his political agent. He enters into negotiations for him. Each important General has a staff of emissaries whom he sends about the country, making arrangements and alliances. These emissaries are usually competent politicians.

There is no board of strategy to lay out a campaign. The Ministry of War, under General Ho Yingching, was developing into a competent administration, but it was hi constant conflict with the office of the Commander-in-Chief, while Genera! Chiang Kai-shek held that position. Naturally, General Chiang was superior to the Minister of War, for' he was the head of the government.

Chiang Kai-shek imported Colonel Max Bauer and a staff of German officers upon the advice of General Ludendorff to organise a general staff. Colonel Bauer died of smallpox and his successors were not men to command the respect that he did. The German advisors of the national army have not been of any particular value to China, although they did manage to advise the purchase of implements of war from German firms. FOR CIVIL STRIFE. The Chinese Army is trained for civil warfare. It is so organised that it can fight only a foe that is similarly organised and equipped. The rifle and the machine gun are still the most useful equipment because the enemy has no better equipment. The National Government and the nowdefeated and probably defunct Manchurian Army have some aerial equipment but not enough to fight a modern army.

Most of the national armies’ aeroplanes are of American make, but they are almost useless. Chinese flyers fly too high and there are too few of them. The 'planes have been rusting in Mukden for want of competent flyers. When Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang flew in his enormous ’plane he often employed a foreign aviator. The Chinese flyer is no coward. He is quick to learn and he often means to fight well. But there are not many of them, they are poorly paid, and the regular troops are so jealous of them that they receive few rewards for what they manage to do. During one of the most serious campaigns that the Nanking Government faced T. V. Soong, the Minister of Finance, took over the aviation bureau of the army and ran it, but the army was opposed to his interference, and it had its way.

Aeroplanes are really only useful for scouting and dispatch carrying in civil warfare. As a rule the soldiers and the populace learn to expect the

bombs and disappear when the I ’planes fly overhead. In North China, \ particularly in the loess country, bombs from ’planes usually only make holes in the ground. In South China, they fall into rivers and canals. Tanks were tried in North China, but they were quickly ruined by the sand-like soil, and the ten or more tanks purchased are now in ruins. Heavy artillery' is useless in South China because it cannot be moved easily over canalised country. In North China it is more useful and is used. .

The Chinese army to-day is a tremendous improvement over the army of, say, 1919. Then the units were all wholly independent, the equipment was everywhere poor and inadequate, and the commanders were mostly of the old bandit type. At that time the great commanders were men likt* Chang Tso-lin, Tsao-Kun and Wu Pei-fu, who were altogether devoid of scientific training.

Nanking’s army has trained soldiers at itst head. A man like General Ho Ying-ching, the Minister of War, could be developed into a modern fighting man under the circumstances existing in Western countries. He has good men under him in Nanking, many of whom were educated in Japanese military academies. General Chiang Kai-shek himself studied in Japan. The best training these men got was at the Whampoa Military Academy, near Canton, under Russian instructors with General Galens-Blucher at. their head. General Galens, as he called himself in China, is. an excellent soldier, and he did his best to train a modern Chinese army during the three years or less that he had the job. The best fighting men in China, to-day are graduates of this school.